In many cases there is a need for several different gases and/or liquids to be available in a single room. A typical such situation is a room in a hospital in which supplies of air, oxygen and nitruous oxide must be available and in which there must also be a vacuum connection for evacuation of gases. Similar requirements are presented by various types of laboratories and workshops.
In such cases it has heretofore been conventional to distribute each different fluid in a duct system which was specific to that fluid and which extended from a source of the fluid to an outlet at the location where the fluid was needed.
The heretofore conventional arrangements of ducts for distribution of fluids from central sources have had a number of disadvantages. Installing ducts within walls and similar structure is very expensive and can give rise to difficult and costly problems when leaks develop or when changes must be made in the locations of outlets. A system of exposed individual ducts for delivery of several different fluids is unattractive in appearance, tends to collect dust and dirt, is hard to keep clean, and--although less costly than concealed duct work--is still very expensive. In any installation involving several different ducts in proximity to one another there is an obvious risk of confusion between ducts, with possibly serious consequences.
To avoid these disadvantages, individual storage tanks containing needed fluids have sometimes been located in the rooms where the fluids were to be used, thus eliminating long conduits extending from central sources to the various points of use. However, such individual storage tanks or accumulators are in themselves bulky and expensive. Furthermore, if a particular fluid is needed in several different rooms or at several substantially spaced apart locations, it is obviously inefficient to provide an accumulator or storage tank for each such location.
The general object of the present invention is to overcome all of these disadvantages of prior arrangements for delivery of various fluids to desired locations and to provide a simple and inexpensive structure that can be quickly and easily installed, is very satisfactory in appearance, is very easily kept clean, and enables each of several different fluids to be conducted from a remote source and made available at any desired location along a wall or similar surface of a room.
Another and more specific object of the invention is to provide structure suitable for exposed installation that comprises several ducts arranged in such a manner that the fluid to be carried by each is readily identifiable, each duct being readily connectable to a source of the fluid it is to carry and being adapted to be tapped at substantially any point along its length where fluid carried by it is to be utilized.
It is also a specific object of this invention to provide structure that comprises a plurality of ducts defined by a unitary body that can be readily formed of metal or plastic by a molding process or by a continuous casting or extrusion process, and wherein the several ducts are readily identifiable.
It is also a specific object of this invention to provide a modular duct unit of the character described that is readily connectable with other similar units and with sources of fluids to be carried by the ducts, and which can also provide for connection thereto of certain useful and appropriate accessory devices.